Greed, Civil Disobedience, and Onlineness

I went to Harry Potter this weekend. It was great. Before the movie, we watched 10 minutes of slides advertising consessions, then ten minutes of television ads, then 10 minutes of previews. I’ve only been to the cinemas twice this year, and I’m not in the least bit disappointed. I highly recommend the local brew & views.

Maybe its that I’ve only gotten fed up with it recently, but it seems that our greed knows no end. Be it the Motion Picture Association of America, or McDonalds. Many of these companies are dabbling in this thing called the Internet. The RIAA and MPAA are doing it in a very self-destructive fashion, but they’ve got the law on their side.

McDonalds is advertising in the new online Sims game. There’s already virtual civil disobedience planned, including virtual protests. What a great idea. Like Blogger, it gives the voiceless masses a voice. A voice that no one listens to, and does nothing to change anything. It doesn’t seem that all the blogging has done any good except to placate ones selves.

I think I saw a quote on blogger’s site; “the revolution will be bloggerized”. There’s something to be said about the decentralization of information, but its hardly a revolution. These virtual protests and postings are clever, but they seem like shouting into a bottle. (a clear bottle, so that people can see, but still somewhat futile)

Fortunately I’ll be able to use Satellite Misters as an excuse to not post anything of substance or significance. Whew.

2 thoughts on “Greed, Civil Disobedience, and Onlineness”

  1. This is what I’ve been ranting about for three months now! (Remember the web site I emailed you about Palladium?) The article you posted was really cool, but let’s not tar and feather the MPAA and RIAA (and the politicians on their respective payrolls) without including Big Brother himself! Take a few steps back and look waaaaay up and there’s good ol’ Micro$oft moving around the chess pieces. Remember, if the trusted platform is adopted and implemented, it will ultimately be M$ controlling content, not the RIAA or MPAA. Everything gets approved through THEIR software and THEIR servers. And yes, say goodbye to Macintosh as the leader of anything but cool looks (though I feel Motorolla’s refusal to update their hardware knocked Mac out of the performance race quite some time ago, even in regards to their former strangle-hold on content creation–especially visual content creation such as animation, where the dominant software package isn’t even available for Mac). The geeks all have their panties in a bunch over it, as it also is devestating to Linux, with the GPL being a joke. Oh well, hopefully somebody will realize how illegal it is and blow the whistle again. At least that will delay it a little. I equate it to the tobacco business.

    Change of direction. Speaking of movies, yesterday I was in Suncoast picking up my dad’s birthday present when I stumbled upon something I had to have: the Brazil Criterion Collection Edition. At $60, it was well worth it: a three-disc box set with the uncut version (the one you have) on disc one, a massive collage of documentaries on disc two, and a ninety minute (as opposed to 140) special cut called “the love conquers all” version (I believe this is the version that the studio made him cut it down to with an alternate intro and alternate ending as well) on disc three. One down, two to go.

  2. With solar panels and the internet, you’ve gotten yourself away from their grid and their word.

    I heard someone liken this to the dawn of the steam engine and the guttenburg press. Those were very centralized and limited sources. Even China can’t stop the interenet.

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